Walk This Way. Run-D.M.C. was a Hip Hop group from Hollis, in Queens, NYC. Founded by Joseph “RUN” Simmons, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, and Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell, the group is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential acts in the history of Hip Hop.
They were the biggest act in Hip-Hop throughout the 1980s and are credited with breaking Hip Hop into mainstream music. They were the first group in their genre to have a Gold record and be nominated for a Grammy. The group was among the first to show how important the MC/DJ relationship was. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked them number 48 in their list of the greatest musical artists of all time.
Walk This Way, the song and video became one of the biggest hits of the ’80s, reaching number four on the Hot 100, and cemented Run–D.M.C.’s crossover status. It also resurrected Aerosmith’s career. More than this, it was really the bridge between rock and Hip Hop in the mainstream that allowed their followers to try both genre as viable and important.
As a professional DJ, I remember when RUN-DMC were first commercially released. They blew me away with their force and passion in both beats and lyrics. It was not long after that they became regulars on my turntables and the clubs I was working in at the time. It was fun to see how people reacted to hearing their stuff for the first time. I knew then that they had tapped into something special. When they recorded “Walk This Way” with Aerosmith, they cemented themselves as pioneers again. There are those that say they were the ones who birthed the so-called Golden Age of Hip Hop. To me, they were the ones who made Hip Hop relevant and important to the music industry and music in general.
Walk This Way